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One of the many amazing, beneficial things having a culturally diverse population does is make our food more interesting. Though Sriracha is pretty recognizable to most people at this point and salsa is, of course, an everyday condiment, my newest spice-related obsession might still be a bit of an unknown. Gochujang, which is a Korean staple made from hot peppers that falls somewhere between sauce and paste, has now taken up permanent residence in my fridge. It’s a more complex, rounded taste than a sauce like Sriracha or sambal, with a slight fermented kick and an affinity for sweet companions, but it packs no less of a punch.

I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that I first learned about gochujang as a result of the amount of food television I watch, but I’m delighted that I did. Since purchasing the bottle that sits jammed in amongst my mustards and capers and olives and preserved lemons on the door of my refrigerator, I have added it to every sauce I can think of and drooled over its application on chicken, steak, anything grillable.

Weirdly enough, though, the food I have applied this wonder-sauce to that made me the most excited was cauliflower. Through a roundabout voyage starting with the hipsterized version of the age old bar-and-tailgating tradition that is buffalo wings, I found my way to a tray of cauliflower lightly seasoned and roasted until tender, then brushed thickly with a mixture of gochujang, molasses, and oyster sauce before being broiled to caramelize. Served over a scoop of fluffy brown rice and topped with conservatively confetti-ed lime zest, it requires nothing else.

I know, I know, I just said it requires nothing else. But I want to add a few notes before we get to the recipe part because how much you love this depends on you doing a little taste testing. I use a spare amount of olive oil to roast the cauliflower because there’s melted butter in the glaze. Were you going light you could skip that, but I love the way it enriches and rounds out the end result. As for the “big three,” so to speak, of sauces we’re combining, you’ll want to start with ¼ cup of each and then play according to your taste. I find I end up wanting a little more gochujang and just a drizzle more molasses, but remember as you sample it in progress that this is going to be divided up over two heads of cauliflower and tempered by the neutral nuttiness – if you choose to serve it the way I do – of brown rice. In either case, the lime juice I couldn’t resist adding winds up being non-negotiable: you don’t taste it, quite, but that little bit of acid, as is so often the case, balances the whole thing.

Gochujang Glazed Cauliflower

Serves 4 (with sauce and rice left over)

50-60 minutes

2 cups long grain brown rice

chicken broth and/or water to cook rice

2 large heads cauliflower

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 teaspoon salt

¼ cup unsalted butter

¼ cup gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)

¼ cup oyster sauce

¼ cup molasses

juice of ½ a lime

zest of one lime

Start the brown rice cooking in a rice cooker or a large pot (if you use a rice cooker, follow its directions for quantities of liquid. If you use a pot, you’ll need about 4½ cups of liquid for 2 cups of rice). It will take about 45 minutes.

Set the oven to 450F, then drizzle two large baking trays with 1 tablespoon of olive oil each and put them in the oven to preheat as well. This ensures that the cauliflower starts to roast immediately upon adding it to the pan, since the oil will already be hot.

To prep the cauliflower, carefully use a sharp knife to cut out the core from the bottom of each head. Remove that central core and any lingering leaves, then set the heads floret side up on a cutting board and slice into thick slabs – about ½ inch – and florets as some of the slabs separate. Remove the preheated trays from the oven and arrange the slabs and florets in a single layer on the hot oiled trays. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the top, 1 tablespoon for each tray, and sprinkle lightly with the salt.

Place the trays into the oven and roast at 450F for 20 minutes, then carefully flip over each piece using tongs; return to 450F oven for another 20 minutes.

While the cauliflower roasts, make the sauce. In a small saucepan or a heat-safe bowl set over a small pot of simmering water, melt the butter, then whisk in the remaining ingredients. Taste to see how you like it, then add more of the gochujang, molasses, or oyster sauce as desired. I find I like a little more gochujang and just a drizzle more molasses.

This is a good moment to check on your rice: once it has absorbed all its liquid, let it sit with the heat off (or on the “keep warm” setting of your rice cooker, if it has that) for a few minutes for a fluffier end result.

When the cauliflower is tender and lightly golden on both sides, remove it from the oven and preheat the broiler. If your broiler element is at the top of your oven, move the top rack up so it’s positioned right underneath the flame. Either brush cauliflower pieces generously with glaze, or tumble them into a bowl and toss with the glaze. I prefer the former because it keeps the pieces more intact, but the latter method would make for a more even coating of sauce.

However you glaze them, return the trays of sauced cauliflower to the oven, now on broiler mode, and broil for just a few minutes to allow the glaze to bubble and caramelize.

To serve, pile a generous helping of cauliflower over a scoop of brown rice, add additional sauce if desired, then sprinkle with lime zest.

I’ve tried to start this post three times. Each time I deleted what I’d written, and ultimately it took me a week in between actually making the thing and knowing what to write (hence the Halloween plate) because as usual, it’s hard to know how much from “out there” belongs here in my little virtual kitchen. I feel like I want to talk about it, even though it is hard, because to separate and live only in an idealized, happy little blog space feels disingenuous. Yet to try to write about a massacre in the same breath as a dessert feels just as bad. And it is happening more and more often.

So I’m going to try to write this post by talking about my friend M. instead. M. is an amazing woman who, in my last two years of graduate school became a firm friend, and in the years since has risen in my esteem to be one of my favorite people. She is smart. She is complex. She is opinionated and feisty and loud and dedicated and… just a really cool human being. She is also vexed with a complicated set of food allergies. And she happens to be Jewish. She deserves, as do all people, to live safely, have the freedom to practice their faith or lack thereof, and to pursue happiness in their own way. And so because I’m having trouble writing out my thoughts about Pittsburgh and what has happened there in a way that makes sense, I made a dessert for M.

It’s not enough. It’s not even a related action. But I saw a post on Facebook the day I made these from a woman named Kim Weild that told me “The Talmud says: Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” We have so, so much work to do. And on this day I could not complete the work, but baking was a tiny way of doing something I felt capable of doing. And I voted while it was baking, so there. Are you going to? Tomorrow’s the day…

One of the challenges of feeding M. is that she cannot have dairy or eggs. Rice is out of the question, as is beef. So is avocado, of all things. Gluten isn’t a no-no, but it should be a rarity. So M. has spent several years investigating alternatives, and though I don’t see her very often, I occasionally concoct something she can eat, in the off chance I’ll get a chance to feed her. There’s an allergy-free coconut cream pie recipe deep in my mind that I want to get to someday.

This one, though, is inspired by a now-lost-to-the-ages conversation she and another food-interested friend had on Facebook once that I eavesdropped all over. It involved pumpkin, turmeric, and other various spices. It may have included oatmeal. What it did for me, however, was to get me thinking of what would happen if you combined a lot of warm spices with Indian flair in a pumpkin pie, subbed out the eggs for silken tofu, and instead of a traditional crust, pressed together a combination of nuts and coconut oil graham cracker style. And then I scrapped the whole pie idea entirely and went with bars instead.

These are rich, taking a long time to bake and an insistence on cooling completely before they can be dealt with. Ideally they should be refrigerated overnight to let the coconut oil and the oils the nuts release chill and reconstitute, while the pumpkin and tofu mixture solidifies into something creamy and almost smooth. But in addition to a baking dish, they do require only one food processor and a small bowl to mix up, so that’s easy. They fit right into a long, slow afternoon when you need something sweet and tender and spiced to comfort you.

M., here’s a humble plate of comfort I made thinking of you. Happy belated Hallow-birthday-ween.

Indian Spiced Pumpkin Custard Bars

Makes 9×9 inch square pan

About 1½ hours plus cooling time

Crust:

1 cup raw, unsalted pistachios

1 cup raw walnuts (halves or pieces)

¼ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

scant ⅓ cup coconut oil

Filling:

1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

16 ounce block silken tofu, drained and patted dry

½ cup soy, almond, or coconut milk – your preference

¾ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cardamom

½ teaspoon ginger

½ teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350F and line your baking dish with a “sling” of parchment paper: one piece that covers the bottom and extends past the top of opposite sides, and a second piece positioned perpendicularly, so it adds a second layer to the bottom and extends past the top of the other two sides.

To make the crust, add the walnuts, pistachios, ¼ cup brown sugar, and ½ teaspoon salt into the bowl of a food processor. Using the pulse function, pulverize into fairly even bits about the size of lentils, though some will be smaller. Reserve ¾ cup of this mixture for later.

Add the coconut oil and buzz on high until very well combined but not quite buttery. You want the coconut oil to be fully integrated, but you still want to be able to manipulate the mixture.

Once well combined, dump the crust mixture into the prepared pan and use your hands or a spatula to press it into an even layer across the bottom. Stow this in the fridge while you make the filling.

In the same food processor (you can wash it out if you want to, but I didn’t bother), combine the pumpkin puree, the silken tofu, the milk, the ¾ cup brown sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, all the spices, and the vanilla. Process on high until the mixture is very smooth, then stop the machine and scrape down the sides to be sure – sometimes little clumps of tofu remain.

Remove the crust from the refrigerator and pour the velvet-smooth filling in, then carefully transfer to the oven and bake for about 60 minutes. The edges of the filling will be firm and the center will be extremely wobbly but set on top.

Remove from the oven, gently sprinkle the reserved nut mixture over the top in an even layer, being sure to get it into the corners. Return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.

Turn off the oven but leave the dish inside for about 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely before refrigerating, ideally overnight, but at least for a few hours.

Carefully remove from the pan and the sling, then slice while still cold and serve. Alternatively, serve by scooping big spoonfuls into bowls or pretty glasses and adding a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream on top.

As I know I’ve noted before, when we come home from any kind of vacation, even though I’m often flooded with food inspiration, we tend to start out with simple dishes; it takes a week or so to reorient myself to the kitchen and be prepared to let those inspired ideas actualize. Besides, at least for this vacation, there have been so many photos to edit I haven’t had much time for the kitchen…

So this time around, I was making a simple pot of rice as a side. But you know me: I can’t just make a plain pot of white rice. So as I put the water on to boil, I added a couple of bay leaves. Then after a minute or two, I plopped in some peppercorns as well. And as we were eating the perfumed grains, lightly warmed by the peppercorns, I thought some cracked cardamom pods would make a nice addition.

There you are, then. Simple spiced rice. The bay and cardamom are quite subtle (enhanced by an overnight stay in the fridge, if you’re looking for do-ahead), and the peppercorns add warmth that is not quite spicy. It’s simple, but it’s a really nice upgrade for a pot of rice you might, say, serve with tandoori chicken or kebabs or saag paneer, as we did.

The only downside, as N. would hasten to tell you, given the chance, is that there are an awful lot of whole peppercorns in the scoop you level onto your plate, and crunching one of those between your teeth is exciting, but not necessarily in that pleasurable way. You miiiiiight want to spend a minute or two in extraction duty before you start your meal.

Simple Spiced Rice

About 20 minutes

Serves 4-6

3 cups cold water

1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns

1 bay leaves

4-6 green cardamom pods, lightly cracked

1½ cups long-grain white rice, such as basmati

optional: salt to taste, and a pat of butter to serve

Pour the water into a medium pot, then add the peppercorns, bay leaves, and cardamom pods. Put the lid onto the pot and bring the water to a boil.

When the water reaches a rolling boil, add the rice, stir to break up any clumps that form and to distribute the spices, then lower the heat until the water is just simmering.

Simmer over low or medium-low heat until the water is absorbed and the rice grains are just soft in the middle, around 15 minutes. At some point during the simmer, the water will likely threaten to boil over. Just take the lid off, stir gently, and replace the lid again.

Well, I did it. In my exuberance about having a vegetable garden at last (one year into our tenancy in our very own house, N. built us a few raised beds and I treated myself to a few varieties of heirloom seeds), I brought home a little zucchini plant from the garden store.

The first time I planted zucchini, it did what zucchini does: it grew so many squash for us that, halfway into summer, and after grilling, stuffing, roasting, and frying, I filled every baking dish in my kitchen with batter and looked for new friends so I had new possibilities for offloading all the loaves and cakes and muffins my happy plant had obligingly helped me produce.

The second time I planted zucchini, which was only a year or so later, about seventy percent of our potential squashes got about three inches long, then turned yellow at the blossom end, softened, and shriveled. Unwilling to dive into experimental hand pollination, I sighed and concentrated on tomatoes instead.

So I was delighted when, in a different garden and a different state, this spring’s zucchini plant proved the adage about third times and charms, as it perked its little leaves up and started to produce its familiar little orange blossoms. And then it got bigger, and I celebrated our first little courgettes. And then it made more. And its leaves reached the size of small umbrellas. Its flowers would have fit a full four-ounce mini-log of goat cheese and had room to spare. Suddenly, underneath those spiky umbrella-sized leaves and fragile, pollen-dusted blossoms, I was facing down an army of tiny squashes and remembering why so many avid home gardeners leave laundry baskets of zucchini on their neighbors’ porches in the summer.

It was time to bake zucchini bread. Fortunately, I have a pretty foolproof recipe, a zucchini spice loaf from the thick and dependable Bon Appetit Cookbook, and that is fine. But I wanted to play. My recipe calls for vegetable oil, cinnamon, and chopped toasted nuts. Oil is a good choice for quickbreads, especially if the loaf also contains nuts, because it’s 100% fat and thus keeps the bread moist. But the best banana bread I’ve ever had, bought from a roadside stand in Maui, was advertised as containing all butter. I wondered if, with a little tinkering, I could bring that buttery perfection to my zucchini loaf.

Converting from oil to butter requires a little calculation – butter is not 100% fat; it’s a mix of fat and water, so you need more butter than oil if you’re substituting. Since the oil is liquid when it’s incorporated into the batter, the butter would need to be as well, and if we were already melting it, well, we might as well go the extra step and brown it. This would also evaporate that pesky water in there, leaving us with 100% fat again.

That sorted, and wanting to keep things toasty and rich, I replaced half the granulated sugar called for in the original recipe with brown sugar, added some tart dried cherries for extra interest, and replaced the cinnamon with cardamom for a bright kick that played well with the fruit. And how was it? Well, so far we’ve sliced our way through three loaves of the stuff and I wouldn’t say no to another piece.

Should you decide to make your own (or if you’ve been the victim – I mean recipient – of some of your neighbors’ zucchini harvest), know this: this is quite a thick batter, almost like soft cookie dough rather than cake. There’s not a lot of liquid in the mix – just eggs and the melted butter – and I think that’s why the recipe doesn’t require any draining of zucchini shreds before you fold them in. They add just enough juice of their own to keep the loaf dense but tender after an agonizing hour and a half in the oven. That means, all told, this is at least a two hour endeavor, which might entice you to skip the initial steps of toasting the nuts and browning the butter. Don’t be tempted. Both really to enhance the flavor in a way it would be a shame to miss.

As is frequently the case for quickbreads, this is delightful on its own, sliced right from the loaf. It stays reasonably fresh wrapped in aluminum foil on the counter for 3-4 days. If, however, it starts to feel a little stale, or if you’ve overbaked it a touch, I’ll just remind you that a smear of cream cheese rectifies many sins…

Zucchini Spice Bread

Adapted from The Bon Appetit Cookbook

Makes 1 large loaf

2–2½ hours

2½ cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cardamom

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

3 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1 lightly packed cup brown sugar

16 tablespoons butter (2 sticks)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups grated zucchini

1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans, toasted

1 cup dried tart cherries or chopped dried apricots

Spray or butter a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan, and preheat your oven to 350F. This is a good opportunity to toast the nuts – they are usually ready by the time the oven reaches its target temperature. Once they are lightly browned and smell fragrant, set them aside to cool.

For the batter, first brown the butter. To do this, place the sticks of butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and let them melt and bubble. First, there will be a lot of foam on top. Then it will clear to liquid gold, then you’ll start to see a lot of clear bubbles stacked atop one another. Keep waiting and stirring occasionally. Eventually you’ll start to see some darker yellow residue, then pale brown, then almost bronze bits mixed in with the clear melted butter when you stir. As soon as these bits look bronze, turn off the heat and remove the pan to allow it to cool. If you get antsy, you can put the pan in the freezer for a few minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, cardamom, baking soda, and baking powder. In a larger bowl (I used the bowl of my stand mixer), use an electric mixer or the paddle attachment of a stand mixer to beat the eggs until very well combined and foamy on top. Gradually add the granulated sugar and the brown sugar, then mix until pale and thick, about 4 minutes. It will look almost like you are on your way to meringue. Add the vanilla and the cooled brown butter, beating well to combine.

Now incorporate the dry ingredients in three additions, beating just until combined. The batter will be very thick. Stir in the grated zucchini, then fold in the nuts and dried fruit, if using.

Pour and scrape the thick batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake in the preheated 350F oven until the top is dry and crusty, and the center is cooked through and a toothpick or cake tester inserted emerges with only a moist crumb attached. This will take about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Let cool in the pan at least 10 minutes to avoid breakage, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely before slicing.

Summer is here. All that stands between me and falling deeply, fully, thankfully into it is one class of final essays and a little bit of paperwork. And then! It’s all soaking up sun and aimless wandering on the beach and all the vacation I can stomach. No, wait, that’s someone else’s life. For me it’s gardening and finalizing an article and planning a class and, well, okay, vacationing. But more on that later…

In celebration of the summer hanging just out of reach, I thought a nice little beverage might fit the bill. The inspiration for this one came a couple of Sundays ago, as we had lunch with M., a friend from graduate school who happened to be in town for an extended birthday voyage. We decided the occasion merited drinks with lunch, and I had a sangria that, oddly, is NOT the direct inspiration of this one. Rather, as we clinked forks and glasses, M. told me about her favorite way of making the drink in question, which involved stone fruit and herbs – her preference is sage; here I’ve used thyme as I tend to find sage a mite strong, but you could easily do both. This drink is easy to play with.

Typically sangria involves wine, fruit, and something a touch stronger to fortify it like brandy or liqueur. It gets lightly sweetened, and the fruit is allowed to steep a while to soak up some of the liquid. M. replaces the typical apples and oranges with stone fruit, and rather than the usual simple syrup she uses a spoon or two of apricot preserves, which very cleverly reinforces the stone fruit flavor while sweetening the drink.

Between the preserves and the fruit pieces, which break down a little bit as they sit in the wine, this isn’t a crystal clear brew. But it is crystal clear that it deserves to be drunk. It is bright and light – a perfect aperitif – and would pair well with almost any snack you can think of: flatbread, crostini, savory cheeses, maybe some cold salmon, and definitely the wine-soaked fruit at the bottom of your glass. As my sister noted when I sent her a preview photo, “Looks delightful. A+ Would drink.” Some people like to top up their sangria with sparkling water or lemonade. I do not, but you can if you want to. This is, after all, your summer.

* a note for serving: I used a champagne glass here for presentation purposes and loved the look of it, but once loaded with fruit, it held an unsatisfying quantity of actual drink. I’d suggest a wine glass or even a tumbler. Additionally, while the slices of peach looked very pretty, smaller chunks are a little easier to navigate both while pouring and in the glass itself.

Stone Fruit and Herb Sangria

I wouldn’t dare estimate how many people you like to serve out of one bottle of white wine…

At least 2½ hours (mostly time chilling), but could be prepared as much as a day in advance

750ml bottle crisp white wine (I used a vinho verde from Portugal, which was slightly effervescent)

2 tablespoons peach or apricot preserves

3-4 large sprigs of thyme or sage

3 ripe peaches or other stone fruit, pitted but not skinned, cut into thin slices or chunks as you desire

½ a lemon, thinly sliced or cut into chunks

optional: ¼ cup orange liqueur or limoncello

ice plus extra herb sprigs to serve

sparkling water or lemonade to serve, if desired

In a small pot, combine the preserves with about ¼ cup of the wine and the thyme or sage. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the preserves melt down and emulsify, so to speak, into the wine.

While this mixture is simmering, put the peaches and lemons into a large pitcher or punch bowl, then add the hot wine and preserves mixture, including the herb sprigs. Add the remaining wine and the liqueur, if using.

Refrigerate until cold; at least two hours is enough, but overnight is even better to let flavors mingle.

Serve over ice, being sure to get some of the fruit into your glass. Add an extra sprig of thyme or sage if desired, and top up with sparkling water or lemonade if that’s your thing.

Unlike other Chopped Challenges N. has issued me, this one emerged Athena-like: fully formed and near immediately (though admittedly without the headache). Though the most commonly recognized form of gazpacho is tomato-based, as I offered to you last fall, a green version, usually blended with bread for viscosity and sometimes with some kind of acidic dairy product (more typically yogurt), is also reasonably well known. Thus two of my requisite ingredients were already attended to.

Though the green iteration of this cold soup can include anything from tomatillos to green bell peppers, I decided on cucumbers for the crisp, liquid coolness, and grapes for a sweet touch that I thought would go well with the ginger. To keep things feeling savory, a few scallions made their way into the mix, as well as a handful of parsley for an herbaceous flavor and a more brilliant green color.

As for the mayonnaise, a traditional gazpacho incorporates generous glugs of olive oil, and what else is mayonnaise if not another fat source, already emulsified in itself? The few tablespoons I decided to allow in the soup didn’t feel like adequate representation of the ingredient, so I sliced up the other half of the sourdough batard, slicked it with a thin layer of mayo, and toasted it under the broiler for a warm, crunchy accompaniment to provide contrast. For aesthetic value and interest, as you can see, I dolloped in a touch of yogurt and a few halved grapes just before serving.

We found this tasty, and I think it would be an incredibly refreshing first offering at an outdoor gathering, particularly fun served in tall shot glasses (perhaps without the garnish) for cool, quick sipping. It wasn’t our absolute favorite, though I must admit its flavor improved given a night in the fridge to let the flavors intensify. Straight out of the blender it will taste quite sweet, but after the requisite minimum of two hours’ chill time, it edges back toward the savory side as the cucumber asserts itself. We found the buttermilk needed a touch of help from some vinegar for the right tang, and the ginger in my version was surprisingly mild, so I’m offering a range in my ingredient list below; aim high if you want a more assertively spiced soup.

Green Gazpacho “Shooters” with Mayonnaise Toasts

Serves 6 as an appetizer

2½ hours (includes chilling time)

For gazpacho:

1 cup crumbled or torn sourdough bread

1 cup buttermilk

3 small seedless cucumbers (I like the Persian variety)

1 cup seedless green grapes

3-4 scallions, white and pale green parts

⅓ cup parsley leaves and stems, or a combination of parsley and mint

1-2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

For toasts:

Thin slices of sourdough

Mayonnaise to spread

To serve:

Dollops of yogurt, optional

A few additional green grapes, halved, optional

Snipped chives, or individual parsley and/or mint leaves, optional

To make the gazpacho, combine the torn or crumbled sourdough and the buttermilk in a bowl and let sit 10-20 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the cucumbers and scallions into rough chunks and add to a blender with the grapes, parsley (or parsley and mint), ginger, mayonnaise, and vinegar. After the bread and buttermilk have soaked, add this as well and blend until smooth. Return to the bowl (or just keep it in the blender, if you prefer) and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight for more intense flavor.

When you are ready to serve, preheat your broiler and spread the slices of sourdough with a very thin layer of mayonnaise, being careful to get it all the way to the edges (otherwise burning results, as you can see from a few of mine). Set the toasts in a single layer on a broiler pan or other oven-safe tray and broil just until they are lightly browned and just starting to become crisp.

Pour or ladle the gazpacho into small bowls or glasses, garnish with a dollop of yogurt, a leaf or two of complementary herbs, or a few fresh grape halves, and serve with the toasts on the side.

Paper and Salt attempts to recreate and reinterpret dishes that iconic authors discuss in their letters, diaries and fiction. Part food and recipe blog, part historical discussion, part literary fangirl-ing.